Begin Again
by Badwolfandbalthazar
Summary: If the Walkers hadn't come from the opposite direction Daryl left in, she would have been out the door in a heartbeat looking for him. But as much as that fact comforted her, she realized he wouldn't be there to protect her either. It made her stomach sink and throat tighten. She'd have no choice but to deal with this herself.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hey ya'll, a multi-chapter Caryl fic. Hopefully you enjoy :). Please lemme know why or why not so I can stellar for ya. Happy reading 3

Begin Again: Chapter One:

Waking up at the crack of dawn had never been her thing, but she wouldn't let him be the only one. Besides, if she didn't feed him, he wouldn't eat. Last thing they needed was the only real hunter in the group to starve to death. They were close enough to that already she knew, not bothering to look at the diminishing pile of food stacked neatly on the kitchen table.

So up she got every morning, usually just in time to rush downstairs and put together something that would travel alright, before he appeared in the kitchen and walked quickly out the door with her parcel.

They were quiet mornings. Usually he nodded, neither feeling particularly inclined to speak the typical pleasantries. Weren't much for them. But he did always pull his brows together, looking at her pyjamas. Daryl always slept with his boots on, knife sheathed at his hips, crossbow within reach. And Carol, well, she could either get changed in the morning or make him food to take on his hunt. She couldn't do both and he wouldn't compromise on when he left, muttering he could take of hisself.

Walking behind him to the front door on that particularly cold morning, she couldn't help but wonder what he thought of his status in the group. She looked out for him not because he needed looking out for, but because that was all he did for everyone else, completely neglecting himself. Not if Carol didn't step in to fix that. He deserved better than he gave himself. She just wanted to him to feel as valuable to himself as he was to the group.

Not that she would ever say that to his face. She bit her bottom lip, trying to keep her smirk to herself, thinking about how that conversation would go.

He caught her smirking out the corner of his eyes, quickly glancing back down to the ground, grabbing his pack. She had that look before, and he remembered what had come of it when he asked. He brushed aside the anger at that memory, disguising the discomfort at being looked after. He nodded to her, barely taking the time to look up before he left the house, wanting to hide the slight flush on his face. 'Cause the problem was he actually liked being looked after a bit. Made him feel like some kept pansy who couldn't take care of themselves though. Made him feel uncomfortable to feel that way about it. Dixons were either pissed off or drunk, Merle would slur to him like an apology after he got beat down by their daddy or Merle himself. Daryl subbed in "hunting" for drunk though. Problem was no one, much less a toothpick of a woman he'd known for some few months had ever looked after Daryl. Merle and his good for horse shit dad didn't count. That life was dead now anyway.

Carol watched him disappear, standing at the door long after his figure fleeted, her smirk and good mood disappearing with him.

He used to take her out at dawn. A while ago, before the weather got too cold and supplies got thin. The less they had the more they had to find creative solutions to make up for it, and that often could take up most of the day. Living a life of survival was exhausting at the best of times.

She spoke words she regretted after the farm was lost. After a few days truly thinking about what it would be like split up, to not have Rick, or Lori, or Maggie, or god forbid Daryl, she understood what their little group meant to her.

She had lost her precious Sophia. She watched her motionless, lying on the ground all those cars away, and couldn't protect her, even if she had wanted too. She just didn't know how.

Now she chose to remember the better times with her little girl, and was determined not to let this group, her family now, be taken away.

So Daryl and her went out, at the crack of dawn, every single morning. First she just wanted to learn to hunt. She wasn't foolish enough to think she could actually defend or protect anyone from Walkers, but she needed to contribute. Needed to help keep this group strong and together. Daryl was surprised, and he had never let anyone go out hunting with him before, but like only Daryl could, he picked up on her intentions right away. His silent consent mean he approved of it.

She wasn't bad. She learned to set a couple traps, how to clean the animals, get them ready to be cooked. But quickly, not even a month in, he scrapped teaching her to hunt animals.

There had been a bad patch for a while. Walkers were migrating south and they kept getting caught in the thick of it. Daryl resisted teaching her at first, and resisted a lot, but Carol was determined. She couldn't let herself be a burden anymore, and at the very least she had to be able to defend herself. He couldn't deny her that, so eventually he angrily gave in and she was taught how to take out Walkers.

That was several months ago.

She smiled, thinking about the groups reaction on her first run into town. Daryl had been teaching her for a couple months, and frankly she was really good. Once she go over the emotions of it and built up her strength a bit, she started becoming just as good as any of them. Carol was always petit and light on her feet, and Daryl taught her how to use that to her advantage. She wasn't powerful enough or had enough brute strength to take down Walkers like most of them did, but her way was quieter and stealthier. A real advantage when herds were roaming through what felt like every part of country.

But she knew if asked a year ago what would be more shocking: Walkers wiping out half the population, or Carol Peletier taking them out like she was made for it... Well she figured it would be the latter.

She snapped from her daze down memory lane- she blamed the unholy hour of the morning it was- eyes focusing back to what she was looking at. She saw movement. Her muscles immediately tighten and mind flicked to full awake, turning from tired and lagging to alert and ready.

One Walker, dim and distant in the woods as the sun shone only a sliver yet in the hazy cold morning. Grabbing her coat from the hook without taking her eyes off of thing staggering in her direction, she zipped it up quickly, grabbing the belt that had been hooked underneath of it and put it on tightly. The familiar weight grounded her a bit, with the feel of the knife on one side and gun strapped to the other a comfort.

Her head snapped to the right, another appearing, a distance away from the first, both travelling in the same direction, both thankfully coming from the opposite way Daryl left. If they hadn't, she would have been out the door in a heartbeat looking for him. But as much comforted her, she realized he wouldn't be there to protect her either.

More came.

They were a distance away, but she counted at least eight. All spread out, all walking without real purpose. They didn't know about the house, packed with people, was so close to them. As always a slew of feelings rushed through her, her heart unable to decide on one.

She walked silently and quickly from the front door to the living room, where Rick, Lori and Carl were. Their room opened up to the dining room, where Glenn and Maggie were. Carol peered through the window facing east, looking out the direction they came. It didn't look like a herd. There might be some stragglers hanging back, but herds were many and never left the amount of distance they did. She found it a grim comfort that after being around the Walker so much this winter, they were starting to understand their habits.

"Carol... What is it?" Rick said, rubbing his face, eyes wide as he woke himself up quickly.

This time there just wasn't time for those typical morning pleasantries. "Walkers. I think nine. Not a herd as far as I can tell. Gotta stay quiet." She whispered, turning in her crouched position for a moment before shifting back.

"I'll get T-Dog, Glenn and Maggie." He said, waking up and on full alert instantly.

Carol shook her head. If she was wrong and it was a herd, or with one not far behind, the whole group would be too loud and they would never get out.

"I can do this, quietly. There's so much distance between them I can take them out one by one. You know I'm quick and silent."

"We ain't having you do this alone. No one goes out alone. I know you're good but we get everyone suited up, and we all take them down."

"And if this is a herd?" she whispered fast, hearing movement in the other room and upstairs. Lori was up, and Carl was gone, telling the others already. They were too practiced in this. "I know, fight or flight, but we aren't gonna have time to get away if everyone is off scattered or gets cut off."

It happened not all that long ago, and she could see the memory burning painfully behind Rick's eyes. They had all managed to get out but both T-Dogg, Maggie and Hershel almost didn't make it back. It was too loud, too scattered, too chaotic. Just too many Walkers. The memory of the almost losing so many, watching and wondering and stitching and all that blood burned in Carol's heart. They were her family. She had to protect them better. And she knew she could do this.

Rick wavered, torn and weary. He was tired. Everyone was. He was their leader and it burdened him heavily, but Carol knew she was right about this and needed him to see that. He was looking at things less and less emotionally, unable to carrying the emotional baggage of caring for everyone above the safety of everyone. And the potential of losing one person over the potential of losing several grimly won him over.

"Alright," he said, crouching down and looking at her intensely. "I'm going to be at the front door, watching you like a hawk, weapon ready. If anything, and I mean anything happens- a Walker gets to close to you, there are just too many- I'm callin' you back or the cavalry is comin' out, you hear me?"

She nodded, practically running to the front door, pulling on gloves from her coat pocket as she did so. Taking a moment she looked out as she slipped on and laced up her boots, counting and watching. They were getting closer, coming from the east and heading south west. They would cut right across the tip of the yard if she didn't get them in time.

Rick grabbed the door, opening it up for her. He gave her a nod before she clicked open the screen door and walked silently out.

She stayed quiet and low, moving swiftly into the woods. She couldn't be sure none of them heard, but the sound of the Walkers footfalls came at that unpredictable but oddly consistent pace. None of them, at least to her ear at this distance were speeding up.

The first one went down easy. She slipped up beside it, choosing the one that was farthest north from the house but was the front of the pack. She slipped her knife deep and fast into its eye socket, using momentum rather than pure strength to take it down. She used her other hand, holding it by the neck and easing it down to the forest floor as fast and as silent as she could. Definitely not soundless, but it was the best she could do.

The next three went down the same. These Walkers had clearly been turned a long time ago and had yet to find a good human meal for a while. Their bones were brittle, figures gaunt, skin decaying and skulls letting her knife slip in easily, making a sticky and stomach turning sound as she pulled it out.

She moved to the back of this roaming group, seeing the ones out in front were too close together. They would be easy for the group at the house to take down if it came to that anyways.

She moved carefully, barely touching her feet to the ground as she walked it felt like. But she stopped short before reach her next target.

This Walker was probably twice her height and in full rotting football gear, helmet and all. Carol pulled a face, before trying her best to back away silently, hoping the helmet would help muffle any sounds. You don't turn your back on them, and you don't leave them alive (or walking, whatever term you wanted to use for the undead). She couldn't take him down, not without causing a lot of noise, but she couldn't turn her back to him either. Daryl would be cursing up something foul if he knew she was doing this, especially if she told him about this guy. He made her repeat those rules a lot in the beginning, when she had gotten too emotional, taking an knife to the head of a Walker, a mere boy no more than fifteen, and when she had gotten careless, turning around in circle overwhelmed with the Walkers coming for them.

She definitely wasn't going to tell him about this guy. Maybe bribe the others with something, doing extra chores or cooking their favourite meal, so they wouldn't tell him about this whole thing at all.

There were two close calls, her foot slipping the mud as the dead Walkers threw their weight at her as they collapsed, but none of the others were the wiser about it.

The last one, the football player, number twenty two she saw, had started veering north, farther away from the house than she knew the others could see.

Carol stood, her posture crouching with bloody knife in her equally drenched glove. She shifted forward, and for a terrifying second she thought a Walker had hold of her. She spun her head around only to see her wool coat latched deeply into the thorny bush beside her. It was either test to see how much noise that helmet really blocked by rustling out of the bush, or leave the coat all together. She opted to leave it and get this hell of a morning over with.

She swallowed, looking down at her practically bare legs, knowing how much she'd get chewed out by Daryl for wearing her stupid pyjamas. He gave her a look every morning, literally every single morning, about her wearing nothing but peach striped cotton shorts and a brown tank top. She was a sight to see, dressed like that in big black boots and bloody gloves, taking out Walkers in the woods.

As she approached the last Walker slowly, Carol saw him slow down a bit, wavering from his pace for a few moments, though she couldn't see cause for it.

It all went downhill before she did, hearing a muffled but audible exclamation a distance away, back towards the house. The helmet wasn't completely sound proof after all.

The Walker turned and immediately lunched at her, forcing her violently back, barely able to keep her footing. Ducking fast and deftly under his clawing hands and decaying mouth, Carol moved behind him, hoping to stab him in the neck while he stumbled to turn around.

But she was the one who stumbled, figuring out why the Walker had paused and shuffled around on the spot for a minute.

The ground right behind the Walker, the one Carol was fast losing her footing on, was the edge of a very steep slope, falling sharply down into the forest. Trees and bushes lined the way down and she knew that it would feel none too comfortable if she fell down.

She instinctively reached out to the Walker, looking to grab onto something: his jersey, anything. But he turned around faster than she thought for someone so dead and so large, forcing her back further and making her lose her footing altogether.

Impact on the brambled and hard forest floor knocked the wind right out her, along with the knife out of her hand. Tumbling down hard, she barely had time to feel her skin be ripped up by the branches and thorns before she flipped over again and again, the feeling of her skin shredding happening again and again too.

Hitting the bottom hard, Carol laid tangled, head still spinning and slipping so much she wondered if she still was careening down that damned slope.

Thousand of points of pain suddenly engulfed her, like little specks of acid had been sprayed on every inch of her. She could feel the bruising well up all over her body, the blood ad heat from thousands of cuts and scrapes begin to bleed in earnest, and her head unable to focus on anything but sheer pain.

She didn't notice the Walker til it was almost too late. To her spinning mind he came out of nowhere, that red number twenty two doubling and fuzzy to her eyes. He was coming from behind her and she lay there, not knowing where the hell she was. Unable to move her legs, Carol reach around, groping the forest floor for something, hoping that for once in this gone to hell world she would find a bit of luck and her knife would just be there.

Instead she reached for a broken branch, forcing it into the Walkers head and he threw himself down onto her, right above her face. She didn't have the strength to force that piece of wood into him hard enough to put him down. If he had been at her feet, she wouldn't have had his momentum. She would have died. Slowly.

Laying there for several moments, ignoring the sticky oozing that came from his head right beside her own, Carol just breathed. It was done. She hoped to high heaven that it was done. No herds passing through, no miscounting, just have it be done. She doubted she was none too quiet slamming and somersaulting down the hill, and she knew if she didn't move and soon she would be too stiff to do so.

Untangling took a long time. Walking through the bushes to find an easy enough part of the slope of the valley she was in to get out took longer. And getting up wasn't exactly an easy stroll either.

But up and out, Carol walked, arms tight across her chest and breathing deeply. She felt her chest tighten and eyes begin to burn as they watered.

Why after all that fighting, falling down, the pain she was in, was she only thinking of Daryl out there alone and maybe walking right into a herd? Why was she tearing up for that, and not herself for one small, tiny moment?

Why couldn't she just have a selfish moment where she thought about only herself, the pain, everything, and not the fact that Daryl should be here, pissed like thunder and calling her out on her stupid plan. She wished for that rather than this silence as she steadily and stiffly walked back.

These Walkers could have broken off from a larger group, and maybe he had run into it on his way hunting. What if he was hurt, lying in a ditch of brambles, hurt and bleeding, while Walkers lurched forward for him...

"Stop," she whispered harshly to herself. "Look at what you did, and stop it."

Daryl had taught her. He had made her capable of doing this. He could face and fight and beat so much more than she could. It was stupid of her to think he couldn't. Stupid to think he wasn't coming back. But she worried all the same.

Shock and horror would be two very actuate words to describe the looks on everyone's faces as she hobbled back to the house. It wasn't all too big a place for a group their size: three bedrooms up top and than the main floor space, with nothing worth speaking about. It was another house, just like the many they had taken refuge in before.

But the living quarters seemed too small for the rest of them, because as she approached she saw the entire group, minus Daryl, were all outside.

Carol sighed inwardly at their looks and exclamations. She hated that kind of thing. With her head down and her voice repeating "I'm alright, I'm fine, it's just some scrapes, I'm fine" to every single person as she forced her way through the crowd to get inside. An easy lie she had repeated countless times in her old life.

Words came at her from all sides as she sat at the kitchen table. Questions and explanations (and even a congratulations from Carl about her "standing up to those assholes") assaulted her from all sides.

Apparently a few stragglers came by just south of the house and they dealt with them. She silently thought to herself, remembering someone shouting something that caused the football Walker to turn and spot her. That this was why she wanted things quiet as possible.

But Glenn hurt his arm real bad, something about how the Walker knocked him down and he landed on the blade (Carol mostly pieced that together above all the talking and noise everyone was making). T-Dog had gone out in a pickup to check the east of their house for more Walkers and had gotten back just before she did. She didn't think it had really taken her that long to get back to the house, but apparently it did for him to be gone and back already.

In the commotion and chaos (which was what she wanted to avoid in the first place), they thought she had taken the Walkers out, not able to see the one that headed too far north, and that she had swung back around to help them with the others. Beth had a similar coat and such a slight frame that a few thought it was Carol when she went to help Maggie bring an injured Glenn back to the house.

Carol silently sipped her water through all of this, trying not to look too uncomfortable. It wasn't just the pain that burnt every inch of her skin, but the more people talked, the more she knew the amount of practical but time consuming work they would have to do. Everyone was hungry, having no time for breakfast before this all started, with clothes ripped from the morning's activities and bodies dirty and wracked. This was going to be a long day yet. Half the battle was getting through the hardships, the other half recovering from them. And with the pace they were burning through houses and through towns, Carol knew there would be little rest today. They couldn't be leisurely about their pace. Things had to be done right away.

Lori was the first to remember that Carol, injured and exhausted, needed to be looked after. "Hershel, get your kit and some antibiotics. Beth, you grab some water and a cloth." She sat down beside Carol, and immediately everyone scattered around the small house to do the long list of things that needed to get done. Lori gingerly tried to peel off Carol's glove, her face growing paler and paler.

"'S okay, Lori, I'll do it." Carol said looking at the very pregnant and very nauseated woman beside her. She tried to smile as sweetly as her pain would let her. "It's just some cuts and bruises and I have looked after plenty of those in my time."

Lori wanted to protest, Carol could see that much in her eyes, but with a hand on her mouth she just nodded, walking fast to the toilet. The pungent stench of the dead on her thickly covered gloves was more than most could stand. Carol wondered how the poor mom-to-be-again stood being in the same room for so long.

Hershel passed by Lori on the way out, kit in hand just as Beth set down the bowl of water and cloth on the table in front of her.

"Hershel, you have a seriously injured man," Carol began, giving him a pleading look. Not only did he have to deal with an injured Glenn, but Carol also knew from past experience that that meant a worried sick Maggie. She gave the same speech to him as she did to Lori: "I can clean myself up just fine. I've done it enough times throughout my life. I should be able to handle it by now."

Beth took the job of helping Carol out of her gloves, pulling a face Carol would have made if she had the energy. Beth had them both off and in a plastic bag on the counter (couldn't waste them; they would have to be washed) by the time Hershel agreed, walking off to the dining room was where she saw a bandaged Glenn lying on the table as the door swung opened and shut.

"Beth, honey, we have to feed these people before we all fall over." She said standing up. Beth opened her mouth, but they both paused and looked to the door as Lori walked in, shaking her head before rushing back out.

"Even if we air this room out now, she won't be able to come in here for a couple days," Carol stated, trying not to sound discouraged about more work it put on her. "If we rustle up something quick, I'll get to cleaning myself up in no time."

The young girl's face was drawn and a little too hollow for Carol's liking. She needed to eat. Everyone did. Carol wasn't dying or bleeding out, and with T-Dog, Rick and Carl on Walker duty, Lori on Lori duty, Hershel and Maggie on Glenn duty, she knew this wasn't the time to rest just yet.

Both Carol and Beth tried to keep things light as they worked, washing last night's plates and trying to pull together a decent and hopefully large enough meal for the group.

But all Carol could do was think about Daryl and try to keep the tears back.

**A/N: Thanks for reading! Kudos if you got the Shane reference Four points for you!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thank you every who reviewed and all that are following! Let me love you down. Happy reading 3  
**

**Begin Again: Chapter Two**

TWD

He'd been out all day, moving west, walking parallel to a small stream. By the time the sun was low, Daryl began walking back. He could've gone straight in- he had a few rabbits, bunch of squirrels- but instead headed south, meaning to loop to the back of property. Hopefully catching something else. Tracks were thin on the ground. And they all were getting thinner and thinner as winter dragged on. Carol probably less than the animals he was pulling in today.

It wasn't until he came up to the edge of the property, the sky now black, that he knew something was wrong. There was that god awful smell. The one that permanently made camp in his nose no matter where the hell they were. Rotting corpses.

Exhausted but with crossbow pointed and ready, Daryl picked up running towards the house. His steel tied boot landed on something soft with an odd crunch to it as he broke through the woods to the property. A skull. After stomping so many you get to learn what parts made what sounds underfoot.

_Shit._

From her window she saw him run up fast to the house, crossbow as ever trained and ready. Relief flushed over her instantly, pushing out the worry and fretting she'd done all day. It wasn't so unusual for him to get back just as night was properly falling. But since dawn Daryl happened to occupy more of minds thoughts than she maybe liked to admit. She could breathe easier now and the small little room she had began feeling a lot more calming.

Her room was up top, everyone insisting she have one to herself to be more comfortable. She had been a little lonely actually, not used to _not_ being in such close quarters with everyone, but knowing Daryl was back made that unconsciously trickle away. Easing back just a bit, she started on mending the very last shirt for the day. It was Glenn's, the long gash cut from upper arm right across to the shoulder. She had tried to wash most of the blood out that morning and it was somewhat acceptable. It wouldn't be pretty to look at but it would be wearable, the only real requirement nowadays.

Her relaxed posture was quickly shifted when she heard a commotion coming up through the floor.

Definitely Daryl speaking. Well, yelling really. And not for the first time that day her stomach dropped. She had forgotten to ask everyone to be as vague as possible when it came to her involvement that day. Today had been exhausting and once everyone had finished what needed to be done, they had headed to bed. She was up and still working, almost done with her mending. Rick was keeping watch and an eye out for Daryl so between the two of them the house had been plenty quiet.

'Til Daryl got in. It got louder and louder as time went on, making her wonder if she should grab the candle beside her and head down. But she was stiff and exhausted and eventually Daryl would come up. Maybe seeing her all cut up wouldn't help anyways. She wondered how she would have kept the story quiet with her all cut up anyways.

The heavy footfalls landed on the stairs, fast and two at a time. Carol was going to put down her work, but mending or no, it wouldn't stop the storm that was Daryl Dixon when he was upset. Might as well do something productive while he cursed.

Walking into that small cold little room, did nothing to calm him down. Downstairs he got the gist of what happened, and connected the dots. No way in hell could anyone else take down Walkers quiet-like like Carol could.

He pushed the door open, the frame banging against the wall and making her eyes snap up to meet his.

"Holy fuckin' hell." He shouted, face crumpling up in a mix of emotions. She looked like total shit.

Perched on the edge of the chair in the corner, needle in one hand and blood stained shirt in another, Carol sat calmly if clearly tired. In a small cardigan and shorts, every inch of the skin he could see was cut, bruised, red or dirty. No part of her was spared. Ed must've been walk in the park compared to this.

"It's fine," she said like she always did. Words that were as dead as any Walker was. Damn other people never heard through that lie like he did. "I just have to finish this, I'll clean myself up, and be just fine."

Even talking he could see was painful for her: he purple and swollen bottom lip, cut across the bridge of her nose slanting up towards her eye, the skin that had been shredded and scrap clean off her jaw line. It all scream pain.

"Yer one dumb bitch ya know that." He spat, chest heaving as his blood boil under his skin. "Ya fuckin' save their ungrateful skins and yer here, mending their fuckin' shirts?"

He grabbed the shirt out of her hands, whipping it across the room. It hit a lamp and crashed loudly to the floor breaking into tiny shards.

"What the hell were ya thinkin'? Goin' out there like that? Could'a got damn well killed or fuckin' worse!"

He couldn't even look at her as she sat there and just took it. Just like she always did. From him, from them, from fucking everyone. She saved them, everyone, and here she was cleaning up more of their mess like she owed them something, like she had to prove herself, like they still thought of her a burden that needed to pick up the slack. Like she was worth less than them. Made him fucking sick.

"Daryl," she offered, barely loud enough to be heard over his stomping feet as he paced the room, not very much unlike a riled up bull. "I'm not dead. I'm just cut up. Things got busy and these," she gestured to her cuts. "Aren't going anywhere."

"What, 'cause ya think ya deserve less than 'eryone? Glenn cuts his god damn shoulder, so let's clean up his sorry ass, let's sew up his fuckin' shirts. But you, let's ignore her, her pain ain't as fuckin' important. Shit Carol, it happened _this mornin'_, what do ya think you fuckin' owe them?"

Her voice got firmer. Everyone was tired. He had been hunting the entire day, she had been working the entire day and heaven help her she was going to get him to bed so she could too. His anger wasn't getting them any closer. "I wasn't bleedin' out Daryl. Nothing too deep, nothing too painful. Just stiff and sore. I'll get over it."

He suddenly closed the distance between them and grabbed her wrist, looking down to see her reaction to a simple touch. She almost didn't wince as the light touch set a painful heat down her arm.

"Ya see? Shit Carol!" Letting go he paced the small room furiously.

He hadn't ever looked after someone so much as Carol before. Not even Merle and all his stints in the pen. Here he was protecting people's lives. Her life. Or god damn trying too.

Yeah, she was good now. Could defend herself. So what? So that son'v'bitch rick could shove her in the middle of the fucking woods _alone_ like she hadn't _only_ been doing this a few months?!

"And what," He said finished his thought out loud, jumping up to open the door and yell down the hall. "So this worthless bunch'a assholes can watch ya get torn to fucking shreds?"

Carol sigh soundlessly, watching the man in front of her start pace again, eyes practically red and steam coming from his ears.

He worried, worried like it hadn't already happened, that he couldn't've of done something. That made him seethe with anger.

They never saw her worth, not even now when they're pushing her into the fire to save their asses. And then she came back- a miracle at all- hurt and suffering and they put her work like what she had just done didn't matter a lick.

Gripping his hair tight in one hand, all that could be heard was his stomping boots on floor and audible breathing.

Carol sighed again, this time wearily. She was too tired to fight his anger, and knew it would take some days to simmer out.

But faster than she could see, he practically ran out of the room. Like her tired little groan had spent him running. The sudden quiet buzzed in her ears. Straining herself to hear what in heaven he was doing, Carol waited for the sound of a yelling match, or worse, the sound of something like another lamp or someone like Rick being thrown against the wall.

Waiting in that terse silence, Carol was surprised when the door opened and Daryl wordlessly walked in, bowl of water, cloth and Hershel's bag under his arm.

"What..." Carol started, Daryl crouching down to her and rummaging through the bag. "Did you take this from him? What if Glenn-"

"Than he can go ahead and fuckin' deal with it."

"You've been out huntin' all day, you gotta be exhausted, just let me-"

"You ain't done this all day when ya could've, so shut it."

He put some supplies on the table beside her: some bandages and antibiotic ointment. Without touching her skin, Daryl slowly peeled the cardigan off one arm. She breathed through the little pricks of pain everywhere as the fabric clung to her opened skin. In the small house with some many, everyone grazed her now and than no matter how careful they all were, so she had no choice but to put the cardigan on for some protection, however uncomfortable.

Somehow, just in the pyjamas she wore every morning downstairs and the ones Daryl saw everyday, somehow now she felt a lot more exposed. With him nothing but a few inches away she tried to swallow that feeling down. Besides, privacy was not a survival essential so they'd seen plenty of each other. She should've been used to this by now.

"Fucking pyjamas." he muttered.

Looking down with eyebrows raised, Carol saw what his tone had suggested. He was smirking, looking fairly smug to himself amidst all the anger still playing around on his face.

"Oh, don't go getting that look now. You just had every feather in the bunch ruffled." She snorted.

"Well maybe ya'll fucking learn." He looked at her seriously, slowly and gently dragging a wet cloth down her arm, careful to gingerly clean each cut. "Gotta be prepared for those son'v'bitches to chuck you out the window at those Walkers."

She just nodded at that, letting him do his work. Reminding himself of what the group had done- what she practically begged Rick to let her do actually- put those angry lines back on his face. His brows were pulled together and jaw clamping shut tighter and tighter the more he saw of her. But at least this focused enough of his mind to keep from hollering.

He wasn't all that angry at her exactly, however stupid she was for going out there without him. The braver she got, the worse he got. He couldn't protect her if she was running off into every fight the second he was out the door. He saw the woman broken by the loss of her girl, a woman who couldn't put herself back together and protect herself at the same time. She was stronger than the others ever gave her credit for, dealing with Sophia's death and putting that axe threw her worthless husbands head. Strong enough to deal with a life probably not unlike his own before the world went to shit. They never talked about it, but they knew none the less. You didn't have to speak the past, you showed it every day. And without voicing it, they both knew something else; that she was the person closest to him, and he was the person closest to her.

Coming from where he did Daryl never found the slow realization much comfortable, brushing it off with the fact that hell, there were only a handful of people alive and around, or with anger whenever stunts like this brought up his anxiety to the surface. It took months of realizing it and he wished he hadn't.

The words were on his lips. Words that would have explained the anger, the resistance, the insults. That she was the only thing he had. That he just couldn't let her get hurt. Couldn't handle that the thought of losing her. Simple enough but complicated as hell for someone like him. It sounded like some cliché shit so thick it made his stomach roll.

"I'll finish up I think." Her voice interrupted his thoughts, sending those words back down his throat with a tight swallow. He hadn't been paying much attention to where his hands were working. With both hands working up her thigh, pressing harder into her skin than he should be, Daryl quickly lifted them away and sat up, swallowing again.

"Ya sleepin' here." He assumed, nodding toward the single bed pushed against the wall.

She nodded and he saw that most of her was now clean, thanks to his unconsciously working hands. Carol grabbed some of the ointment, dabbing on a cloth before gently rubbing it across her skin.

"Yeah, got a place to myself tonight." Her voice dripped with exhaustion and that ointment probably felt none too good, so the happiness creeping into that line confused him. He knew her well enough to know she couldn't get comfortable without people around. Being alone made her restless.

"No, you ain't." Daryl laid down right beside the bed, no changing, no pillow, no blankets. Just lied down and closed his eyes, giving her some privacy to do whatever it was she needed to do.

"Daryl-" she started.

"What, you think I'm gonna let ya sleep by yerself so you can get up at dawn and walk in'ta herd 'a Walkers? Just get t'bed."

He heard her shuffle around a while, the audible snip of scissors cutting through a bandage strip, the repacking of Hershel's bag, the rummaging through her pack to grab clean clothes. He wondered what she decided to put on instead of her usual and ridiculous pyjamas, but he kept his eyes firmly shut.

Eventually the candle was blow out and the bed not two inches from him creaked as her small framed finally rested down on it. Something soft landed on his chest and he glanced down to see a small blanket and pillow there, Carol's hand lingering a moment before being tucked back in under her own covers.

"Thank you Daryl." She whispered into the darkness. He didn't respond for a while, taking to looking up at the black ceiling for a time.

"Yeah." Was all he said. Usually they didn't do the whole chitchat, pleasantries, or whatever the crap you call it thing; they knew each well enough by now that they didn't need too. But he made the effort for her.

Carol smiled in the darkness, looking down in the direction of where he lay in the blackness. He never usually responded to stuff like that. Every word you got out of Daryl Dixon- save when he's furious and you can't keep him quiet- was not to be taken for granted.

TWD

That morning was hard. Daryl left her as soon as she was up, giving her the time and privacy to very slowly ease into the morning. It was dawn, which was actually good, giving her enough time to carefully get dressed and slowly head down the stairs into the kitchen.

He was outside in the yard, chopping wood so they could keep the fire going. Carol watched him by the back door, rubbing her aching arms and neck.

"I think of all mornings you could use this." Lori said behind her, handing Carol one of two mugs, brimming with coffee. They used the stuff sparingly, only having it once a week, and Carol wanted to hug Lori for making it this morning.

"If I wasn't so stiff I'd be jumping for joy." She said with a smile after taking that first beautiful sip.

"I think you deserve at least a cup of coffee. We can give you that much."

The second mug in hand, Lori took the screen door handle.

"Looks like a storm is brewing out there, I better handle this one." Carol said, placing her hand on Lori's shoulder. She looked at Carol, confused for a moment before her eyes followed Carol's to the man outside. Her expression immediately shifted to understanding. With a nod she passed the cup over, and Carol made the short trek outside in the brisk winter air.

"Figured you for sleepin' in today." Carol said over the sound of Daryl splintering the wood with his axe. The pieces cut through cleanly, a lot more equal in size than Carol could ever manage.

"No rest for the weary." Daryl shrugged, grabbing the steaming mug from Carol. "The world mighta changed but that sayin' ain't any less true."

Carol nodded, taking a sip that for a second made her forget just how bad that morning after feeling could be.

Looking back up, Daryl was turned from her, hand on his back that was ever carrying his crossbow.

Any feeling of peace that coffee had given her drained instantly. "What is it?"

His answer was given to her by his actions, grabbing his crossbow and letting a bolt loose into the woods.

She wanted to believe that it was an animal. That they had gotten lucky and got an easy meal this early in the morning. After all the hardship to took jus to eat lately she hoped this was a little bit of luck for them.

But she knew instantly that it was very much the opposite when Daryl walked swiftly to her, leaving the bolt in the woods. He put a hand on the small of her back, leading her in as quickly as her muscles could manage. His eyes only shifted between her and the woods.

Wordlessly they reached the house, Daryl pushing Carol gently in and grabbing the door, forcing it shut between them.

"I don' like this one bit." He muttered, eyes sharply looking out into the woods.

"I don't either," Carol said, very much meaning the door he pushed between them. "Let me help."

"Than go get Rick an' tell 'im." He aimed his crossbow again, and another bolt flew, a soft hiss in the quiet morning.

The man in question came through the kitchen to the door, Daryl allowing him through the threshold to the outside.

"This ain't good man" Daryl whispered. Aiming and firing again, Carol's hand went the closed door frame reflexively.

Yes, this winter had been very rough. And unfortunately for them it looked like it was going to last a little longer.

TWD

"Found s'more stragglers, got no clue where they're goin' too but know well enough where they're comin' from." Daryl slammed the truck door truck, talking with Rick about something that was becoming more and more apparent. They would have to move on and soon.

It had been maybe two weeks since she put down that football player Walker, making her voice the worry that there could've been a college nearby. No way that Walker was in high school. That meant potentially thousands of bodies on campus. Who knows how many survived, how many died or how many turned. She wanted to think he had just travelled from a distance, but that next morning Daryl had put another one down, same uniform and all. It put everyone on edge and with Walkers showing up more often, they had reason to be.

Daryl especially. He had been circling her, orbiting around her peripherals all that time. When she was cooking he was there, outside chopping wood, getting water, cleaning up, washing dishes; he was always there. Not often in the same room, not usually directly in her line of sight, but always there. He'd hang around the dining room door when she was in the kitchen and hang around in the kitchen when she was in the living room. At night he would sleep within inches of her on the floor just below the bed, refusing to let them take turns in it, refusing to go sleep in another room with a couch or pull one into her room. At first she figured he was helping her because she couldn't do her normal routine without some assistance, and Daryl would hardly let anyone near her. He could hold a grudge, that she had come to realize. But once she was more or less back to herself, he was still always within reach of her.

She doubted the others noticed. Or more so hoped not. Daryl didn't go hunting as often, didn't stay out as long, and couldn't bring much back when he did. He said it was Walkers that kept him in the house most days and that obviously was reason enough, but every time someone brought it up, his eyes looked to her for a second, almost unconsciously done. She knew she was the reason, whatever else he was telling the others. He barely left her alone- well, in his own way at least- when he was around. She could tell he wasn't about to risk having her out of his sight for all too long. Neither of them brought it up.

When he did have to go, often Carol herself would come along. That new development astounded her the first time he suggested it. He said she was the only one who knew how to set traps. True, but she could probably take less than an hour explaining a basic trap to anyone in the house. Rick also insisted no one, under any circumstances go out passed the tree line alone. Also a good reason, but nonetheless half way through their first time out she still was a little bewildered by him.

While he watched her back, she set up a couple traps not too far from the house, something that could be quick enough to get too. They didn't want to set up traps deep in the woods, only to meet a group of Walkers that had been attracted by the sound. This way they could check more often, hopefully avoid any unnecessary noise. Much less actually get some meat back into their daily meals.

They travelled a little deeper for Daryl to be able to shoot enough of something decent. They stayed close together and walked lightly. And after a while of Daryl watching her like a hawk in the house, Carol was used to him looking over at her every few seconds.

He knew he was hovering around her too much. If the others happened to notice Carol for one second out of their selfish lives, he wouldn't care if they realized how constant a companion he had been since that night.

When she had been broken down all those months ago, they had avoided her like if she fell apart on their watch they would have pick up the mess. Well now she had gotten through something not many could've, and so now they treated her like anything could be thrown at her and she'd still be standing. They just treated her the way they wanted, no regard to her at all. No one else understood her, no one else cared for her like he knew how.

He never hung around her, not exactly, but often he could feel her eyes on him, probably wondering that the hell he was doing. He realized fast that sticking to her side wasn't an option. The woman hustled and bustled around so much, even when recovering, that he was surprised her feet didn't rub right off her legs. So to stay out of her way he hung back, eyes away from her, a wall usually between, but ears constantly listening to her movements and a vantage point where he could always see her if he turned her way.

Yeah he didn't leave the house without her, and yeah he often made excuses to stay inside so she could be safer. He didn't over think why it meant so much to him, knowing who she was, how she worked and that he felt this need to keep her safe. He doubted he would want to face that answer so he let it be. Hardly mattered in a world where everything not revolving around survival was long abandoned anyways.

He only left her just the once. And that was because compared to what he was doing, being in the house, even without him was safer. He regretted it from the moment he left til he got back, but it was the only way. His head at least knew it.

"We have to move, don't we." Carol asked him when he got back from the scout. Him and Rick talked about what he had found, and it wasn't good.

Carol was out in the driveway with Beth, packing up some things that would be left behind if they had to leave in the hurry. She knew it was coming. They could all feel it.

"You were right." Daryl said to her, waiting til Beth walked inside. He looked her way, eye squinting in the sun and hip leaning up against a truck. "There's a college or somethin' not too far from here. It ain't good."

Carol took a slow deep breath, nodding once as she pushed a box into the back as deep as it would go. She missed the days where they had Dale's RV and not have to worry about lugging all these necessary extras around. Everything was always just left in the RV. Taking refuge in a place and abandoning all the stuff they had was exhausting and disheartening.

"Rick's gonna tell 'erybody we leave in the mornin'." He helped he slam the door and he followed her into the house. She didn't look forward to the weary looks everyone would have at the news, so she tried to put on a face that didn't betray her deep set tiredness.

Everyone had wanted a more permanent place, like the farm had been, to just settle for a while. Lori was so close to having her baby and that weighed heavily on Rick, despite the growing distance between them. He was their leader, the father of a baby soon to be born, and Carol knew he would take this decision the hardest and put a face like it wasn't.

TWD

The night air was crisp, oddly warmer than the air had been that morning. It was rare Carol would stand by the open door, lost in feeling. It wasn't exactly overly safe and with it being winter it wasn't so kind on her body anyways. But come tomorrow morning, they would be on the road for who knows how long. She just wanted to enjoy the feeling while she could.

"See anythin' out there?" A small voice asked behind her.

"Nope, just trees and the dark. It's a pretty look." Carol smiled, taking Beth's hand and the two just looked out for a bit.

"Think we'll find a place a bit bigger than this one?" Beth queried. She said it with a tinge of hopefulness. That made Carol's smile grow a bit.

"Maybe. I'm sure one's out there somewhere." Carol shrugged.

"I just want my own room again. I can go without running water I guess, but having my own bed and space... I'd just love not to share a room anymore."

Carol chuckled, squeezing the girls hand. Even in an apocalyptic world, sixteen year olds were still very much sixteen year olds.

"Daryl, we need to figure out some alternate routes in case." Rick called to the man sitting a few feet behind her on the steps. She heard him get up, walking back to the dining room where the men were getting things in order for their early morning departure.

It was quiet for a few minutes with nothing but the sound of packing and murmurs from everyone getting ready. But some soft sounds out in the forest began to reach her ears.

"What's that?" Beth whispered. Carol was barely able to hear the suddenly very pale girl beside her.

As if in response, a small and sadly pained squeak answered her question.

"Just something in one of our traps honey." Carol responded reassuringly.

"It sounds in pain." The squeaks were getting louder and pulling on Carol's heartstrings. Nothing deserved a slow death.

She waited a little bit before she moved into action. She wanted to be sure it was the trap and not the jaws of a Walker that was causing the animal to cry out.

Carol released the young girl, bending down to grab her pack that had been ready and placed by the door earlier. All her clothes and such were already in a car, but this bag had weapons and other odds and ends she need to have close at hand.

Reaching in she pulled out a large knife and unsheathed it. "Beth honey, I'm not going far, it's literally just up there," she said, pointing, at the end of the driveway just out into the woods. A few hundred feet maybe.

Beth nodded, taking the gun Carol pressed into her hand. "You watch me, and if something is up, you whistle, okay? I'll do the same."

Quickly Carol was out the door and into the night, her pack on her back, flashlight in one hand while the other had her knife at the ready. She really didn't think about calling for Daryl. He and everyone else was busy, and Beth might be young but she wasn't incapable of simply looking out. And this had to be dealt with that moment as the animal's shrieking sound in the quiet night was not something they could afford.

Stepping a few feet into the woods, Carol used the sound of the animal and her recollection to find the poor thing.

But not before something got to it first.

A distinct crunch of the animals skull echoed in Carol's ears as she saw it be ripped out of the trap. An owl, large and silent had heard it and swooped down for an easy meal.

She pulled her fingers through her hair, wishing that she hadn't wasted precious seconds to come out and get it. It would have been nice to cook up a hot and hearty meal before they left.

Turning around, Carol had only one more step before she left the woods for the much favourable driveway, when she saw them.

Walkers, coming up from the south had filed into the backyard. She didn't bother to count because their numbers had to be in the dozens with more filtering in.

Immediately Carol turned off her flashlight and whistled, leaving Beth confused with her sudden disappearance in the blackness. She was a smart enough girl not to call out, and in her confusion stepped back from the door and closed the screen. Carol almost whispered a "good girl" in her direction.

Mind now racing , Carol knew the others would see the herd. They had too. They would turn out the lights, stand silent, come up with a plan for escape if need be. She thought for a moment that she could make it to the house before they saw, but just as she was ready to kick her ass into gear, she saw the Walkers begin to come from the south east too. And they would definitely see her. Carol knew if she ran up to the house now, it would be over for everyone, not just her. She'd give them all away.

But hell if she didn't have anywhere to go and they were heading straight for her.

The cars. It was her only safe bet. There was one maybe a hundred feet away. She silently cursed, knowing it wasn't one she had the keys for. Better an open forest where you can run away from your predator than be pinned down. The fresh image of the blood dripping animal the owl had just taken from her trap came to mind.

She had no choice; she'd have to go for the one slightly farther away. She could drive off and get the herd to follow her and leave the others in safety, circling back when she had led the Walkers far enough away.

Low and quiet, Carol began to run.

And she didn't get very far. Halfway there, another part of the herd emerged, this time on the west side and much much closer to her. Skidding to a stop, she fell back, both palms scrapping on the gravel. Not a second before she was down did she hop back up, sprinting back to the tree line. Looking behind her, there was no unusually fast movement in her direction. The darkness and the car closest to her maybe blocked the Walkers view.

It was just a moment, maybe two that she stood there, on the edge of the property, not a few hundred feet from the only people in the world she knew. Her family. She allowed herself that moment, to feel the terror and heartbreak before she took her only option.

Run away. From the Walkers, from the group, from safety, from him, from it all.

She forced her mind to go blank and her feet to turn away and start running.

She stayed along the edge of the road leading away from the house, not daring to turn on her flashlight and not stupid enough to think she could get through the woods without it slowing her down.

In the darkness she ran, tears falling and heart aching for what she left behind, praying that at least she would survive this.

**A/N: Nothing quite like writing a fanfic til 6am. I hope you guys enjoy presense of Daryl in this Caryl story compared to Chapter One ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

It was the smell rather than the sound that tipped them off. The cloyingly thick stench of festering flesh soaked into the air around the three men. It was nauseatingly palpable.

They didn't speak, didn't say a word to each other, just simply looked up from the maps strewn across the table and went into action. It was a drill they knew well, silently blowing out lights, staying low, hushed words, with weapons ready. No one in the group needed to be told, no one was confused with what was going on. The only thing they didn't know was just how bad it was.

Rick and Daryl stayed by the back dining room window, watching as Walker after damned Walker stumbled into the yard. There was too many, maybe more than sixty in the yard and there was no end in sight.

Automatically Daryl's mind went to Carol, having left her by the opened front door. He shouldn't have let her foolishly just stand there. Seeing would her would've been ringing the fucking dinner bell. He was getting soft, letting her do it because she looked so damn peaceful. Since he had only been a few feet away watching intently, he figured she couldn't get in too much trouble.

He glanced back through the opening from the dining room to the living room, able to see a bit of the front hall. He saw Hershel lead Beth back from the door to the living room, the stupid girl whispering frantically to the old man.

She was holding Carol's gun, the one he gave her months ago. It was the one she kept in the pack which he knew she had put by the door earlier.

His knuckles shone white as he gripped his crossbow tighter, not seeing Carol follow behind them. He briefly thought she would be standing guard, watching out the small door window.

But he knew by the look on Beth's face that that wasn't so. He could feel it. It wasn't something he had felt in his life before and screw what that said about his feelings towards her. It was like there was something connecting them, something that ran deeper than just a similar past, a mutual understanding and a seemingly genuine caring for each other. Like a string that connected them, the one he ignored and chose to forget, going from that emotional place in the pit of his stomach out to her. And he could feel it as it snapped, opening the floodgates of heat and pain throughout his whole body.

He crouched there, eyes not even on the ever coming Walkers creeping up on the house, scared still for a moment like he was some gutless child.

Shame and self-loathing flashed hot in his chest as T-Dog walked soundlessly from the living to him and Rick, his words snapping Daryl back to reality. "Carol's outside, we can't see her. Walkers are comin' up on us at all sides but north."

The confirmation of what he felt, what he knew was true, still hit him harder than anyone else ever had. His body twitched at the blow, like those words had assaulted him.

"No! _No!_" he whispered strained. His eyes began to burn as he swiftly moved to the living room window, Rick close behind.

If she was out there, she was dead. Or as good as dead. Another blow to his body, he twitched again. Peering through the boarded up window slats out into the woods, he rubbed his eye with the back of his hand as his eyes burning and spilt. Like he was some pathetic kid. Shame, anger, pain, loss, hopelessness. It all well upped in him at once.

"Where." He demanded to a teary-eyed Beth. She pointed in direction of where the traps they set were. She was going to get killed because of some damn squirrel caught in a fucking trap. On the small chance it had been just an animal, not a Walker.

He bolted up right meaning to get out there and get her back, now. There was no way- no fucking way- way the was leaving her to die. Daryl didn't get a single step before Rick, T-Dog and Glenn had him, holding him in a death grip and pulling him down to the floor.

"Get the hell off me! Yer killin' her!" He hoarsely whispered, thrashing and struggling against all of them as hard as he could. They might let her die out there but he sure as hell wasn't going to sit back and watch her be torn apart by a hundred Walkers.

"There!" Beth whispered, everyone moving to look closer. Daryl stopped for a moment before frenetically trying to escape, getting more and more frantic.

He needed to see if it was her. Need to see her. He growled and struggled like bear in a trap, eyes growing wide as he saw the look on Lori's face. Everyone at seemingly the same time swallowed with that hopeless look in their eyes, sitting back ever so slightly.

_NO!_

If he had seen her he would have been furious and fought with everything to get to her. But not being able to see her? That was absolute agony. And that made him fight all the more

"You go out there, it's all over, for all of us. You understand that Daryl?" Rick whispered strained in Daryl's ear, arms around his neck in a choke hold to keep him down while the others pinned his limbs as he tried to buck them off. "We have to stay here, have to let them pass us by. There's just too many, we're trapped here. Carol could've gotten back, but she didn't. She knew. We have no choice."

"No!" Daryl sputtered, the hold on his throat barely letting him breath. They'd have to kill him before he gave up. He wouldn't give up, not on her, not while she was out there alone. "N-, no!"

The Walkers would get in the house. Daryl knew that. There were how many living bodies in that small house, smelling very much alive? There was no way the Walkers would just pass by. The whole place would be torn apart. And when that happened, the group would have to scatter and he would run for Carol. Second on the list was killing everyone else in this shit group.

Everyone's heads but Daryl's' turned at the sound of a distinct snap in the woods. Daryl struggled to turn, eyes wide as his thoughts went to Carol.

It had to have come down the driveway, a couple hundred feet away.

"They're following the sound." Lori whispered to Rick and the men holding him down. "They're ignoring the house, walking towards it."

"No!" Daryl managed to get out, jaw clamped painfully shut.

It was her, it had to be her. The herd came from the opposite direction and they hadn't reached the woods yet. It was her. And now a hundred Walkers were heading right for her.

Maggie gave an airy whistle, coming from the dining room. "There's another wave, maybe a hundred feet from the first one."

Rick closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the news. They could get out. They could make it.

If the Walkers hadn't heard the sound in the woods, they would've torn this house apart easy. A gap in Walkers meant the group could run out, get to the cars, and get away before overrun by the next wave that walked up.

While the others hide tail and run, Daryl was fucking bringing Carol back or else.

TWD

She hadn't been running for more than a few minutes before she heard the noise. Yelling, a car honking, the roaring of Daryl's motorcycle.

The snaps and groans behind her were nothing compared to hearing that sound. They were leaving her. He was leaving her. She tried to believe the pain in her chest was from the stab of the cold air in her lungs, not that she was being abandoned and left to survive this on her own. Because that pain would have been crippling.

She wasn't foolish enough to think she could get back through the herd or that the others could drive through it to get her. There were probably more than a hundred Walkers between them, who knows how wide across or how deep.

To keep her from totally losing it, Carol focused on what those sounds meant for those in the group. They were getting out. They were surviving. Sweet Beth, Maggie and Glenn, a pregnant Lori and Rick's son Carl, Hershel and T-Dog, Daryl...

She stopped thinking. She had too. She had to turn it off. The feelings, the ache, the strain her body was under, running at full speed in the middle of a winter night. She had Walkers chasing her. She could hear at a distance their telltale crawl through the woods. Carol knew it would do her no good to look back and check. She could only look forward, keep going.

She just had to keep running away from it all.

TWD

The time of day wasn't something any of them had ever kept any real track off. There was dawn and there was night, and those were the only markers that mattered. You woke up at dawn or soon after, you went to sleep or stood watch when it got dark.

Carol figured it had been dark for a couple hours maybe. Though it could've been a few minutes. Once it got dark it seemed endless, like it had always been dark and will always be.

That first night was something she wished she could forget. All she did was run. She was fast, faster than the Walkers, but there was just so many her speed hardly seemed to matter in her mind. They always felt one step behind her, reaching for ankles to drag her down.

Adrenalin on her side, with those thoughts making it pump thick in her veins, Carol ran til the sky became a light grey with the dawn. The straps from her backpack dug sharp into her boney shoulders, her hand clasping the knife completely feeling-less from such a death grip on the weapon. She was spent, in pain, afraid and knew she couldn't outrun them forever. They didn't have to stop. They didn't have to build a fire to keep from freezing or to cook food. They didn't have to sleep. But she needed too.

In the pale light, Carol decided it was time. She stopped, her legs burning and body reeling from the abrupt stillness. Her hands and limbs began to shake, with what she didn't know. She just had to get out of the Walkers deadly path.

Looking up to the trees, Carol tried to assess which one would be best. Her mind was slow from being shut off for so long, but the jolt of suddenly stopping helped to kick it in gear. She had been in flight mode of so long her body was struggling to let go of it and keep from running the hell away.

Finding one that would suit her purpose, Carol grabbed a hold of the tree's lowest branch, having to jump up to reach it. Taking hold, she hoisted herself up, then another, then another. Getting up fairly high, she saw just to left was a branch connected to a tree that would prove more protection for her. The branches on that tree would have been impossible for anyone on the ground to reach. It was much larger around and even at the height she was at now, there was a small crevice she could get into, a place where the main trunk split up into three large ones. She could sleep there, if that was at all possible in her state, and not fear falling off.

It took ten excruciatingly nerve-wracking minutes to get out on a branch, grab hold of the other tree branch and trust her strength not to make her lose her grip and fall.

Finally making it to the larger tree, Carol straddled the branch and shimmied over, almost jumping head long into the crevice to protect herself from the eyes of the Walkers she knew were on their way.

It could have been minutes or hours before they came. Carol wasn't keeping track. She didn't dare look, dare to move and hardly breathed. It felt as endless as the night, that herd of Walkers, trudging below her.

Long after she heard the last dying sounds of them walk through the woods, Carol fell asleep. Again, it could have been for a moment, maybe it was an entire day. Time took a back seat in this world.

Carol stayed in that tree for a long time once she was up though. She had no idea if Walkers had just passed by, unaware in her unconscious state. Or maybe there hadn't been any at all for miles, the last being the herd that chased her.

Regardless, she didn't move. Not 'til her body's stiffness couldn't be ignored any longer, and the raw ache in her increasingly moaning stomach became too much.

Getting down the tree was more nerve-wracking than getting into it had been. She couldn't take a step or shimmy until she stopped and listened, fearful and paranoid. But eventually she made it back down to the ground.

There was no one there as far as she could see and hear and smell. She tightly wrapped her arms around her chest, that thought ringing in her mind.

There was no one there.

She was completely alone and this was what life was now. Having to constantly watch your own back, constantly be afraid, constantly doubt yourself. Carol had never been much of a leader, and only recently had turned into more of a fighter or protector. She could admittedly never make the tough calls like Rick, or have the instinctual fighting sense like Daryl. They never looked down, they always strove forward.

Carol stood, feeling completely exposed in the wilderness, unsure of why the hell she left her hideaway anyways.

Clamping her jaw shut tight with determination, Carol took her first step forward, deciding to deal with one problem at a time before it all overwhelmed her. Sleep was never completely restful for anyways, so despite the lingering exhaustion, Carol decided getting food was next.

Taking off her backpack, she scanned the forest before digging through it, reminding herself of what she brought. Suddenly spotting a bottle of water her throat suddenly exploded with thirst. Drinking down as little as she could bear, Carol willed herself not to down the entire thing in one gulp. She had no idea when she would come across water next, much less how she could boil it without any supplies.

She was thankful to find a clear orange lighter in a side pocket. At least all she had to do was find a pot, not both, so she could have drinkable water. If she could find a stream.

There was no food in the pack at all, since the food stock back at the house had been dwindling. There wasn't enough to go around, much less have everyone have their own stash.

Time to set some rudimentary traps. Luckily that needed only what the woods itself provided.

TWD

It was just sunset, though to Carol the sun hadn't been seen in a while. The tips of the trees had long hidden the sun from her view.

In a forest full of trees, she decided to find water over sticking around her leafy hideaway. She could climb another tree and spend the night, but only if she found water and kept alive.

She was no expert on how to find water. Or food. Or a supplies. Or, or, or, or...

Figuring water flowed down, Carol decided she should travel downwards too. So upon finding a small but steady decline in the forest floor a few hours ago, Carol decided that that was the best way to go.

She vaguely thought to herself which way the group went. But that thought was clamped shut and fast. Crying wasn't conducive for staying hydrated. Thinking about them would open that floodgate.

Her steps were quiet, the only thing she could hear in the woods. She especially couldn't hear the trickling of water. That was the only sounds she really wanted to hear at this point.

She sighed, draining the last of her water. It would be dark in a few minutes so hunting down a stream would have to wait til the morning.

Bending down to place the depressingly empty bottle into her bag, Carol thought for a moment she heard something over the sound of the zipper.

Clutching her ever present knife, Carol half-turned before something grabbed her tightly across her shoulders. Reflexively her instincts took over, twist to get her knife up to the intruders neck, tried to shake out of their grip.

With a gasp she fell backward, pinned by a strong hand. They had their hand clasped over her own, forcing the knife away from them. The other hand was on her mouth, their elbow pinning her wrist to her shoulder. The stranger's knees pushed hard against her hips, keeping her from wriggling free.

"Geez, ya tryin' to kill me? Damn near died tryin' t'find ya, so hell if I get done in by half'a pound'a woman."

Carol stopped struggling, looking up at the man who had pushed her to the forest floor.

Tears that that had started well up in fear shifted to tears of shock and bitter sweet pleasure. Daryl had found her. He'd come after her.

He released his grip on her once she figured out it was him, her mind was still catching up to process exactly how much this meant. He didn't get off her right away but sat up straddling her as he touched the red mark on his neck. Her knife hadn't gone deep but it did nick him before he could pin her.

"Damn near almost got me." He said, rubbing his neck and examining the blood on his fingers. "You don' look like much but put'a knife in yer hand..."

Getting off her, he stood and held out a hand to the woman still lying on the ground.

Finding her wasn't easy. She was in front of the Walkers and they didn't leave much behind for him to go on. But difficult or easy, it didn't matter. Fact was he was finding her. Screw Walkers, screw the trail, screw death, screw the whole fucking world, he was finding her.

She got up on her own strength, like she didn't notice his hand out for her to take. She stood at a distance from him, her eyes not breaking contact with his.

"Yeah, I look like shit- I been trackin' ya after Walkers destroyed most of yer trail. You ain't winnin' any horse pageants eith-"

Without warning she threw herself into his chest, grasping him so tight he was surprised she didn't snap her twig-like arms right off. It was clear she had been waiting, wanting to feel someone there, confirmation that she wasn't alone. Her desperate clutching made that clear to him.

Daryl just had no idea how the hell to react. He didn't even think for a moment about hugging her or whatever when he found her. The point was never for physical contact- something that always made him freeze and pull away. The point was to have her. Have her there with him. Anything else made him feel stuff he didn't want to acknowledge, so he just didn't.

She didn't care if he stiffened up and jerked away from her. She wasn't letting go. Carol never thought in words what she felt since she turned away from the house running; that she would never see him. Never feel his presence always so near.

Like so many times in the past few days she stopped that thinking in its tracks. He was here. He was _here_. She wouldn't think about anything else but that. Wouldn't give precious space to the 'what ifs' or 'could've beens'.

Eventually, once it was clear Carol would win this battle, Daryl pull so much away. Lightly he put a hand on her shoulder, letting them just be together for a while.

"Run all ya want, I'm the best damn tracker around." He said with a smile after some time has passed. "Ain't gonna get far from me."

"Good." Was all she whispered into his chest.

"C'mon, we better find some place to hole up." Reluctantly she let go of him.

He grabbed her bag and nodded in the direction he had come from. She smiled and nodded back, rubbing away a loose tear falling down her cheek.

TWD

He found something that would work for them, at least for the night.

He ran into a stray Walker less than a mile from where he found Carol. It had gotten its leg right up to its thigh caught in a long fallen tree.

Daryl dragged the corpse back to where they'd decided to spend the just fallen night. He didn't mention how close this look like the spot Rick had made Sophia hide in.

It was a fallen tree with large roots making some sort of makeshift shelter they could hide in. The entrance was small, with bushes, branches and dirt surrounding most of it. He pulled the dead body in front of it.

Hopefully that would help them out. The smell they would just have to deal with.

He let Carol in first, giving the area one last look before going in himself.

The space was small and musty. But he'd take it. With the winter still holding on they were better in a smaller space to help keep warm. It might've helped but it didn't take much of the bitterness away he noted as he saw a shiver run through Carol.

Very slow and careful, he wrapped an arm around her. They didn't have much by way of supplied and no blankets between them. It was huddle together or freeze.

He carefully pulled her in, completely enveloping the small woman. Her body curled up tightly as Daryl wound one arm around her waist. The other reached across her back, his hand resting on her head and pulled her down closer to his chest. Whatever awkward and unfamiliarity he felt about this kind of thing took a backseat to what she meant to him. She needed this so he would give it. He'd do that for her.

He could feel her body strain under him to to keep her emotions together.

He lowered his lips down to her ear. "Just listen t'my breathin'."

Eventually his own breathing began to influence her shaking breath, her chest not pushing so frantically against his and her shaking hands calmed against him.

With any number of Walkers on the loose they couldn't afford to make much sound, couldn't afford to talk about what had happened. Even though they had been apart, the moment they were separated they both had experienced the same thing. The terror and fear and heartbreak. Without having to explain that, they just knew.

Their touch told each other what they didn't have the voice to say.

Carol gripped his shirt tighter, pulling him closer as she tried to keep back the tears. _I thought I'd lost you._

He responded by tucking his head down, the flushed skin on their cheeks resting against each other. _I'd never give up on you._

Time stood still and yet passed, and finally the tie between them could begin repairing from the damage.

A/N:

This chapter has a lot of feels for me, and I really hope you enjoyed! Decided to end it on a sweet note before the next couple chapters come (dun dun duun!). I've updated twice today even though this one wasn't as long but hopefully it is up to snuff. Thanks so much for the sweet reviews from Chapter two! Best thing to wake up too. See ya'll in chapter 4!


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Guys. Still crying from tonight's ep "Killer Within". Ugh._

_In the last chapter I was listening to the song "Help Me Close My Eyes" by Those Dancing Days, basically on repeat the entire time. Give it a listen here: watch?v=QP4DlTEmo_g_

_As ever, happy reading!_

**Begin Again: Chapter Four**

Evading and fighting Walkers left and right, trudging through freezing cold rain in the endless woods, sleepless night huddled together waiting for the world to come crashing down. That was life for them.

"Why the hell are you smilin' so damn much?" Daryl asked, giving her a sideways glance while the corner of his mouth pulled up. They were living on the run for their lives against the walking dead, and here she was smiling like she enjoyed it. The woman was crazy.

Carol just shrugged and looked down, trying unsuccessfully to hide her growing grin.

They'd been walking together for a couple days now. With no extra clothes besides the shirts on their backs, they half kept moving just so they could keep the feeling in their limbs. Water was scarce, although unlike her Daryl could actually find it. They boiled a small amount at a time in his metal canteen so they often had to stop, stand and wait. What Daryl hunted as they trekked through was the only food they had and cooking it also took up time. They ran into Walkers every single day, either choosing to fight or run. Luckily they were of one mind when it came which to choose so discussing it wasn't needed. They were bloody, dirty, tired, cold, sore, underfed, almost dehydrated, and living on the brink of death.

But Carol had him. That was why she didn't answer his question; it was the cheesiest thing she could have thought, much less said. And she didn't want to risk him putting too much space between them when they huddled to sleep at night. Making him feel awkward did that. Daryl might have gotten used to having her so close, or at least accepted the necessity of it, but the man walking beside her whom an eighteen wheeler couldn't take down wasn't the pinnacle of emotional matruity when it came to physical contact with a woman.

The fact was Carol had thought she would be doing this all on her own. Completely alone. And maybe she would have survived. Flourished, no. But there had been a small chance she could have done it. Maybe. Even if it wasn't true she at least had to think that.

She never assumed that he would have found her. That hope would have crushed her as each day passed without him.

So through all the crap they were living, she couldn't help but feel relief and genuine happiness that they were doing it together. It was better than she could have ever expected.

"How much farther now?" she asked.

"Yeah, alright, change the subject," he retorted knowingly with a smirk. Probably wouldn't want to know anyways, not with that look. "'Bout three quarters or more of the way there now I think. Not long."

Despite the almost deadly turn of events, the group had already laid out where they were heading, so Daryl was leading the pair to them. If nothing had gone wrong or and the place wasn't too overrun for them to get too, they would reunite with the group.

Again, that wasn't something she dwelt on. They just had to live day by day. Luck had been bitterly against them and Carol didn't want to settle that thought too deep into her plans. Dashed hope was the lingering theme in this world, just as brutal as any winter could have been.

TWD

Crouched on the ground, Carol took a sip of water from her bottle. She looked up, letting herself take a second to appreciate the unusually warm sun filter through the trees onto her back. It wasn't much, but she would gladly take it.

Looking around to spot Daryl, Carol scanned the woods, stopping herself from calling out. Staying crouched, she pulled on her backpack straps, eyes now moving furiously and ears straining to hear something. He almost never left her side, much less left her immediate view.

A light whistle came from somewhere in front of her where she saw Daryl , crouched as well, crossbow point east. She looked in that direction, both seeing and hearing nothing. Several moments passed and left Carol wondering if it was a Walker or deer that was holding them up. The reaction she would have had would be drastically different for either one.

She cast a quizzical look to her companion just as a voice on the wind reached her from the east. Carol gulped, getting even lower. Walkers were one thing. Strangers were a different bred of problems. Carol put people into two categories: the genuine kind like Hershel and his family, or the untrustworthy and potentially dangerous kind like Randall.

Walkers were one thing. She had learnt to handle those. You stab it or shoot it in the brain before it bit you. There was no other possibility. People were different; you don't go cracking their heads open because they might kill you. But you don't trust them because they might kill you. It left a completely open decision playing field.

It took a lot of self control not to creep over to where Daryl was. Carol put a hand on her throat. They could have weapons. And their numbers could get overwhelming for the travel-weary pair. She tried to reassure herself that unless they walked right by, whoever was there probably wouldn't even see them unless they stepped right on them. Bathing wasn't a priority and both of them had dirt covering them enough to count as full blown camouflage.

Nervously Carol's hand rubbed her neck as a much clearer, louder and closer voice reached her. So they were coming this way. Her hand clutched her knife til her knuckles shone white and her eyes grew large like it would help her spot them.

Carol's heart skipped a beat as she saw Daryl creep closer to her, taking very slow and deliberate steps, never rising higher than being crouched.

He could sense her anxiety from twenty feet away, catching wisps of her shaky breath. He knew what was going through her mind, eyes darting around the forest and hands unconsciously moving. Whatever minimal noise he made, it was better to get to her now than wait. Being forced apart and taking a few days tracking her again didn't largely appeal to him. The thought made his whole body tighten. He easily brushed away why, like he was used too.

When he reached her, he lowered his head down, lips so close to her ear she could feel soft touches of their warmth.

"They can probably spot the white of yer eyes for miles." He jabbed, so quiet she could only just make it out. Carol resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his joking, but his attempt to calm her down wasn't overlooked. She smirked wirily. "They ain't gonna find us. They'll pass right by."

A black mark in the forest made her head move so fast she almost knocked both of them off balance. Daryl crouched closer to her, moving to block most of her frame from the stranger's eyes. He moved his hand to hover just above the small of her back.

She unintentionally moved closer to him, head moving down to his neck, safe behind him and his pointed crossbow.

He quickly counted the men moving through, just a distance north of them, walking towards the west. There were four. Not terrible odds, but they dwindled fast when the second blaringly painful fact showed that they had automatics and a lot of artillery. These guys were not amateurs just taking a stroll. Third was two of them had fresh blood on them. Not the black, dead blood you got when the Geeks cracked opened, but red and glossy blood from the living. It didn't make him any easy to see that the blood was splashed up on a dark green cameo jacket, like the ones the military wore. Daryl doubted by the looks of these guys that were anything close to being military.

He didn't want Carol to see, but couldn't risk moving. She'd just have to stomach whatever fear came with that if she saw. He hoped she wouldn't connect the dots or couldn't see enough too.

Daryl caught a few words of what they were saying, nothing making too much sense to him.

Waiting until they had walked form view, Daryl stood up, eyes always looking west. "C'mon, let's get outta here."

"Let's stay here!" Carol said, looking like she was shocked he wanted to move on. Staying still for too long was never his thing.

"What, you wanna wait for them to walk back an' spot us than? They were trackin' nothin', just walkin'. They ain't gonna follow our trail, so let's go."

Grabbing her arm he pulled her up, walking north east. He heard nothing from her but pushed on, knowing either she would follow or he would drag her.

Carol managed to see the weapons of the men, and that was all she needed to know. They didn't have any packs, just a hell of a lot of guns and weapons strapped to them. They weren't travelling through like her and Daryl were, they had to have a base somewhere by and be out looking for something. She knew it was probably stupid to hide. But her worry for Daryl overruled that by a long shot. If on the off chance they moved and men did somehow catch them, Carol knew Daryl would take them on. Reckless abandon for his own safety to protect her was a constant Carol figured she could depend on. Just like he had kept her on a short leash, she began doing the same, needing to keep safe the only thing in the world she had and wanted close.

But another constant was how stubborn he was. He kept walking and the farther he got, the worse she felt.

"Fine." She whispered behind him, none too pleased. She fought Walkers no problem, but she was scared of the living. He grinned at how ridiculous that was. Yeah, people could be far worse than any Walker, but both went down with one blow to the head and that's all that he needed to know.

TWD

The town was completely dead. Of Walkers. Of people. Of supplies. Daryl didn't question why, just keep his guard up as the pair walked down a deserted main street. There was a distinct staleness in the air like anything living had long left this place alone.

"You said they'd be comin' here?" Carol asked. "Any idea where they'd be?"

"If they stayed it wouldn't be in town. Too risky." He stopped, looking around him.

The sun was out again today, and thankfully it was again warm. Everything had that sunlight yellow tint to it: roads, storefronts, grass, even the rusty rail tracks running through it had a yellow tinge. Nothing else of colour but the blue sky overhead. No movement. No signs pointing them in the right direction.

"This place's deserted. Ain't gonna find them here." He picked back up walking down the pavement, eyes looking to the stores. Maybe not everything was picked over. They didn't have anything but their packs and his crossbow; anything would have helped.

"Why not? Looks Walker-free enough. Maybe they're close by?"

"Nah, there ain't enough supplies, an' we were dangerously low as is. This place was long abandoned an' cleaned out by the looks of it." He pointed out a small store. Nothing special about it, just an odds and ends gift store looking kinda shop. Its windows were smashed and looking inside Carol saw the nothing but white shelves. Pick clean. Even a store like that.

Carol tried not to be disheartened.

"Hope's a dangerous thing." She turned to look at Daryl, his face carefully studying hers, seeing the disappointment. "Should'a left it back in the woods."

Carol gave no reply to that and they carried on.

"Think'll be in luck or what?" He asked, pace picking up as he spotted a guns and ammo store.

She snorted, smiling. "Don't joke about that or it'll get even worse." But really, how could it.

They walked through the door frame, the doors unhinged with one ripped clean off. Inside was an open space with wood panels lining the walls and a long counter at the very back. Shelves and racks were over turned all over, glass smashed and everything in disarray.

The room filled with the sounds of glass crunching like gravel under their feet as they made their way to the back counter.

"How do ya feel about eatin' those words huh?" he asked, tapping a finger to the faux wood counter.

On it, sprawled in large white letters, like it had been done in spray paint was a message.

"'Follow what you're best at.'" Carol read, a bit confused. Underneath that was a little arrow pointing to the letters 'ALT'.

"Atlan'a."

"Well I guess that means our group. Where we came from more or less." She looked back down to the white words. This had to be for them, knowing Daryl would head straight for the gun store, not bothering with anything else in a picked-over town.

"What I'm best at?" he said, snorting. " I don' know, huntin'? How the hell are we supposed t'a follow that? Stupid ass riddles. We'll be stuck in this shit hole fo-"

"Tracking." Carol said cutting him off with a wave of her hand. "Walking in here, I saw some train tracks. Maybe that's what they meant. I mean, they couldn't exactly spell out where they were, just in case." He mind went immediately to the gun-toting strangers in the woods. Maybe the group had had a run in with them. The thought made her sick.

"Yeah, we'll they could've done a shit load of other thing too, like drive out here an' wait for us."

Carol and a few others had always driven out to the highway from Hershel's, hoping Sophia had made her way back. Why the hell wouldn't they do that same here? He had to get Carol back and safe before she snapped in half from exposure. The damn group knew neither of them had much. They should have been waiting here. Screw whatever guys walked around, parading their guns like it was a big show.

"Well, they didn't. Let's get to them and find out why. Which way should we go you think."

Daryl pointed to the counter then crossed his arms. "Towards Atlan'a. C'mon, let's get back to them so I can chew them out for bein' so fuckin' stupid."

TWD

That night was the coldest they had had. The sun had been wonderfully warm, so maybe that was why; going from cold to cold just felt cold, but from warm to cold set a frost in your bones Carol just couldn't shake.

Daryl had been in a mood since the town. The two walked just inside the woods running to one side of the train tracks and all she felt was cold and radiating waves of anger rolling off him.

He could practically hear her shiver, her skin looking less pale and more blue as they went on. He would kill the others. They were doing this to her, and whatever reason they had wasn't good enough.

"Here," he said, once the sun had set and the sky was growing black overhead.

"No," Carol said through chattering teeth. She couldn't stop. Her arms and legs would fall off if she did. She needed to keep moving. How the hell he kept from feeling the same cold was beyond her.

Taking her by surprise, a bright flash of light sparked from Daryl's hand.

She wanted to tell him no, that lighting a fire for her sake was stupid. Even if they hadn't seen one Walker all day, having a fire was just dangerous. With the group they could take watch and keep an eye out, but with just the two of them and the cold draining her energy, Carol knew she wouldn't be able to stay awake enough for that.

"Don' feel like sleepin' anyways." He offered as though that was a good enough explanation.

But as he cleared away some debris, pulled in some kindling and the fire caught, Carol found herself more and more drawn to it. Any argument slipped from her fast as she huddled down by the fire, soaking in the wonderful heat.

It took Daryl a moment to sit down next to her, after what she assumed scanning the darken area for signs of anything. Her weary body and mind were too wrapped up in the small orange flickers.

Shuffling over, Carol closed the distance between them, wrapping herself against his chest and legs pushing against his.

The gloriously sweet heat of the fire distracted her from the feeling of his body tense under her.

"What's wrong?" she said slowly, eyes closed. Usually by now he would've wrapped his arms around him, holding her close to him.

He couldn't answer. They only ever touched at night, and that was strictly because it was that or freeze. That was what he told himself, and that was what he was going to believe. Here she had a fire, so the sudden close contact made every muscle in his body tighten, stomach get knotted and head swirl a bit. He pegged that as discomfort, anxiety.

Because that's what it had to be. That's what it had always been. Whatever else it could be, he chose to ignore it, like he ignored all the other stuff she made him experience. Stuff he didn't like and didn't know what to do with. Like that moment he felt when he knew she was gone. His heart began to pick up the pace as that memory flooded him.

Unconsciously his hand reached out, wrapping around her waist and moving towards her stomach, pushing her closer.

The feeling of her cold nose nuzzle against his neck brought him back, body lurching back and bolting up, knocking her back and forcing the almost sleeping woman wide awake.

They didn't have a moment to process what the hell happened when beams of white light flashed through the forest. Head lights. There must have been a road not fifty feet in front of them.

Not skipping a beat Daryl shoved dirt on the fire, putting the small flames out quickly. Carol stood beside him, both trying to see who it was. One vehicle slowed then stopped, before another appeared behind it, doing the same. The slamming of the doors signalling people were getting out. Carol stepped closer to Daryl at that.

"Is it them?" she whispered.

"Nah, those don' look like our trucks." He knew it wasn't the group. These were bigger. He made an education guess that they were swiped from the army. It wasn't a big leap. Not after seeing those decidedly non-military guys with those blood splashed jackets. Somewhere they had hit up and taken down a military base of some kind. None to reassuring.

A few voices carried on the wind, but Carol couldn't make anything out. They sounded rough. That was enough to set a chill of a different kind back in Carol. Before she had wanted to stay and hide, but now she wanted to run. They had the entire forest yet they'd run into these men twice. She bet they had a base nearby and was not interested in sticking around. They needed to get out of the area and leave those guys behind.

Carol tugged at Daryl's arm, meaning to head down the tracks. In the blackness they wouldn't be spotted. Daryl had said he didn't feel like sleeping and she was now wide awake anyways. The best thing to do would've been to press on.

But Daryl stood completely unmoving. Not in the usual stubborn type way, but like he didn't notice Carol at all. Completely out of character for him to be perfectly honest. Fact was it was strange how much he did notice her. Tugging again harder, Carol put on her backpack.

"Let's head out." She whispered.

Nothing. Not a flinch.

Doing the first thing that came to mind, Carol reached out to take his crossbow from him. Well that got a reaction. He turned, eyebrows pulled together and pushing her away with his elbow.

"Come on." Pulling his arm she made him step into gear. It was going to be a very long and tiring night. Nothing like ending the day the way it had started.

TWD

He hadn't said a word to her since last night, before the men pulled up. Nothing. She admitted that usually they didn't say much. But it was how they didn't say it. They didn't often need too because they already knew. An unspoken conversation.

This was different. Daryl wasn't exactly an open book, but he has his predictabilities and Carol knew him better than anyone. Every few moments she looked to him, unable to get a hint at what was going on inside his head.

Maybe he was feeling upset about last night by the fire? Carol thought having one was a risk at first, but he was the one who started it. Then suddenly when he jumped up and put it out, seeing the headlights, he must've got angry that he risked it after all. If he was upset with himself, that was idiotic. If he was upset with her, well that was idiotic too.

Both of them, wrapped up in their own thoughts, almost missed the clearing in the woods, a large fenced in building. Almost.

Daryl stepped off the track, looking to the prison to too far in the distance. A few cars and a motorcycle in the back a pickup were parked on the field inside. Grabbing Carol's arm, he took off running.

TWD

Carol was smiling so large her face was about to split opened. She wished she savoured that moment of happiness more. Too soon it was dashed.

Rick had taken off towards them, waving them off to the side, pointing somewhere along the fence. The gurgle of a Walker in front of her pulled against the fence, his hand trapped in it. Like a sound like a spoon being pulled from thick honey, the Walker torn it's sticky flesh from the metal fence and walked hungrily towards her. Without hesitating she plunged her knife into its eye socket, her smile still as bright on her face.

They had found them! They were back, in a place with fences and land and shelter, maybe medicine, food and supplies. No wonder the group hadn't been waiting in the town. By the looks of the bodies all around they had been plenty busy trying to secure this place.

As Rick jogged up to them, Carol noticed a distinct limp in his walk. Suddenly the reality of it all came to light; they had taken on an entire prison without Daryl or herself, needing to take out what must have been a staggering number of Walkers.

"Who made it?" she whispered to herself, Daryl giving her a sideways look. He probably had thought of that right away.

Her need to get into the prison grew and grew. She needed to be there for them, now. To find out what had happened. They were her family and they could be hurt.

As Rick reached them, limping up to a place where a red cable was strung holding the fence together, he smiled broadly. Clearly relieved to see them, if at the very least because of the extra man power they provided.

Despite her worrying, Carol smiled as she entered through the fence, hugging Rick. He put one arm around her, the other bandaged around his forearm and elbow. The clink of the cable against the fence sounded behind her, Daryl managing to tie it up before the lingering Walkers could reach them.

"You two are a sight for sore eyes." He said, shaking Daryl's hand.

"So are you Rick," she said warmly. "Though you don't look all the same as when I left... How's everyone?"

Her smile faded as his did at her hesitant question, a flash of some memory appearing in his eyes.

"Anyone dead?" Daryl asked, the trio beginning to walk between the two fences before reaching a dirt road that lead up to what looked like a courtyard in front of the largest building.

"No," The looks of relief were noticeable on everyone's face. "But Hershel's real bad. A Walker bit his leg... I had to... well, I had to cut it off before the infection could spread. He's alive, but we can't keep him conscious. He keeps slipping."

Carol raised her hand to her mouth, holding back a gasp. He had taught Carol some things, mostly to help Lori, but without her there it must've fallen to Lori and his girls, Maggie and Beth. How terrible it must have been, must still be for them, his daughters to take care of him in that state. Her heart ached something awful in her chest, resisting the urge to run up the road to the girls. Her Sophia might not be with her, but that didn't make Carol any less of a mother.

"And we've got trouble." Rick looked back to Daryl, eyes grim. "Prisoners. We have a deal, confined them to their own cell block."

"Shit," Daryl said. "How many?"

Rick waited a moment, weighing his words. "Just two now."

The meaning behind that was clear. Daryl nodded to the man, understanding. Whatever happened to whittle the number down from whatever to two, Daryl was grateful. Last thing he wanted was a prison full of guys who hadn't seen the light of day or a woman in years, especially when no one could be sure exactly they got put in there for. This didn't look like some minimal security place to Daryl's eyes either.

"But that's not the worst of it," Ricked sighed. The words made Carol's heart catch in her throat.

Rick stopped walking as they reached the courtyard, turning to Daryl. "There's some... other people. Don't know where they're coming from exactly, some place they call Woodbury."

"Yeah, think we ran into some of'em. Couple times." Daryl responded. "Not lookin' to friendly."

"Yeah, not towards us." The way Rick said it piqued Carol's curiosity, enough to make her forget the fluttering in heart about the others.

Rick glanced to Carol and for a moment he seemed to be silently debating something.

"Jus' go ahead an' say it." Daryl said, a grey cloud swarming over his face, speaking like he knew what Rick was going to say. Carol stood beside the men, confused.

"Merle was with them." Rick said, coming straight out with it.

TWD

That day had been fairly conflicting. Between relief and heartbreak, happiness and terror, exhaustion and renewal. It made sense that now in the darkness of cell block C, Carol was having a hard time deciding between wakefulness and sleep.

She stood, leaning over the balcony against the cold metal rails, arms stretching out into the void in front of her. The moon, white and clear, shone through the small windows way up near the ceiling.

There was a sweet sense of stillness, and the stifling sense of being trapped. Being out in the woods so long, the openly endless space became normal. Now she'd have to switch to the grey concrete and a grey atmosphere. But it was fortified and the Walkers were kept at bay. And on the plus side, there were beds.

The thought of having a bed all to herself filled her daydreams way back when. Now that she had one, she just couldn't settle.

She didn't seem to be alone in that either. Rick was on the main level, keeping a steady watch as he sat against the wall. Maggie was in with her father, Glenn too. Lori's back was aching something awful so she silently paced in her cell.

After a day of bitter sweet reunions with smiles, apologies, retellings of harrowing stories, most people seemed too wound up to let the calm night carry them to morning.

Daryl was the exception. Carol turned, looking down the balcony to the perch he claimed as his own. Everyone had had their fair share of talking today, all except him. He was quiet, not even angry at everyone like she once thought he'd be. He hung back, listened, responded when needed but not a syllable more than required. As soon as night hit, he turned in. Not that he didn't have good reason too, but it was oddly out of character for him. He was always the last one to bed, the first one up. It was like his survival instinct was too strong to let him stay still.

Carol couldn't keep still. Walking down the balcony arms crossed, she soundlessly tapped an erratic pattern onto her side.

She stopped just in front of his perch, leaning her body against the cool metal once again.

"You wan' something?" Daryl said after what felt like an age. The whisper was gruff, like she had disturbed him. Not her intention. At least not to disturb him, but to talk with him.

"You knew." She said softly. "All last night, all today."

His answer came a long time later. "Yeah, what of it?"

"How did you know?" It wasn't the question she wanted to ask.

"Heard 'is voice, I thought." She could hear his shrugging as the blankets shifted under him. Carol thought that that wasn't much to go on, but it was his brother. If anyone could recognize the sound of someone's voice fifty feet away, it would be Daryl hearing Merle.

"Why didn't you say something? We could have gone after them, if that's what you wanted." She wouldn't have protested. She would have gone along with it if that's what he really did want, even if she didn't. All day thinking about it she was surprised Daryl hadn't taken off after Merle once she found out he'd been there and was somewhat close by (she assumed). It was a struggle not to constantly look to Daryl, to make sure he wasn't leaving.

A snort came from his direction and she saw a dark figure throw off the blankets and sit up on his elbows, facing her. "Yeah, an' the chances of them shootin' us or worse was just as high as 'em welcomin' us. Stupidest thing we could'a done."

And then it clicked.

She was why. Those men didn't look any too kind. Merle hadn't exactly been either. Daryl could've held his own against them. He must've wanted to see his brother and his brother would feel the same. She was the variable. If those men's intentions towards Carol were anything hinting of sinister, there was no way he could've help. So to spare any harm to her, he just walked on by. The brother she knew he never stopped looking for, not really. For Carol he just walked on.

"Oh." That one syllable was filled with understanding and grief.

"Shut'up." He spat, turning to lie back down, back towards her. "You don' know anythin'."

Carol looked at him sadly, knowing that anything she could say would sound as pitying as her last remark and make him even angrier. But still, she wanted desperately to say sorry or something. She was responsible for this.

He had chosen her over his own family, someone who really meant something too him. It didn't matter how much of a jerk he was, he was still Daryl's brother. She got that better than most, the memories of Ed and how much he had put her through coming to mind.

She turned and almost left, but decided to say something after all. "You don't owe me anything Daryl. If you need to go... Or want too... I won't hold you back. I'm sorry for running off. Maybe if you'd've been here you would have seen Merle, and already gone off with him. I just..."

She drifted off, knowing if she said much else he'd hear the sadness in her voice at the thought of him walking away.

"Just, sleep well."

That night alone was by far the coldest she had ever slept through.

TWD

"We'll make a pile, over on the north side. Burn the bodies." Rick called out. The prison was looking more like a graveyard, and the combination of the two didn't leave it a place to be desired. The plan was to clean it up and get rid of the Walkers, then plant some seeds, fortifying and securing everything as they go. Much of the prison they assumed was still over-run, so keeping things secure was always top on everyone's list.

Everyone was pitching in, chucking bodies into the back of the pick-up. Things had barely gotten underway when Carl yelled out from the watchtower.

"Dad! Dad, they're back!"

Carol knew. There was only one group it could reasonably be, and of course she just knew Merle would be a part of it.

It didn't take long to figure out she was right.

Their group assembled outside the main gate, guns ready. Carol could've opted out. She could've gone and stayed back with Lori, Beth and Hershel. Saved herself from having to witness the overwhelming anguish she knew was about to happen.

Merle, looking just as he always had, stepped out of an army truck, smiling.

He gestured to the truck. "Never had any patience for sappy reunions. Step on inside little brother."

_A/N: Half was written during a massive caffeine headache, the other after the massive heart trauma of "Killer Within". Please review and let me know what you think!_


	5. Chapter 5

Begin Again: Chapter Five

She stood a distance away from him, hanging back. Her arms were crossed, body tense, waiting for the other shoe to drop as it were. It was just a matter of time before Daryl left with his brother, she just knew it. There was no reason for him not too. She wished Rick hadn't promised to let Daryl handle Merle when he came around. Rick would have sent them off but now she had to wait out their arguing because after that he would ultimately walk away.

"And what, forget how you left me for all those months?" Her eyes were trained on Merle, unable to make herself look Daryl's way. The older Dixon looked a mixture of amused and angry now.

"Yer damn Officer Friendly left me to _die on a roof_. Forced me t'cut off my damn hand. Ya'll are lucky I'm too much of a forgiving guy an' not roastin' yer groups ass with bullets. Why you sidin' with them now anyhow; I'm your kin, your brother!"

The sudden outburst from Daryl shook her. He angrily stepped up towards the fences, pulse racing. "You left Merle! I fended for myself, for these people. They ain't the ones who left me, _you_ did. You coulda come back but you damn well took off!"

This wasn't what he wanted at all. He wanted to explain how things were different, how he was different. He had a place here, a history with these people too. He was looked too, respected, treated like... well sure as hell not like Merle ever treated him. He had changed, but Merle was the same. Daryl knew he would dismiss it with demeaning humour; he wouldn't understand and would laugh at him for it. Daryl paced back to the group, biting his nail out of habit, head swimming in anger and confusion.

Carol stood still as he walked right beside her, automatically coming back to her, as though his body naturally led him there. As his shoulder brushed hers and with his arm flush to her own, Carol bolstered up her courage and looked to him. She saw his face shift as one emotion surfaced after the other. Her heart ached for him and for one selfish moment she had hope that he would stay. Unconsciously his fingers moved the short distance to intertwine with hers, and she gave them a reassuring squeeze. The contact woke him up to what he was doing, turning to look to her and releasing her hand. She gave him her most supportive smile she could manage. It wasn't all that much but she tired, for his sake.

Through this Merle kept slinging words at him. "What's wrong with you, boy? You ain't a part of this pack of pussies. Yer nothin' but a joke to them. I spent my life makin' a man outta you and what, you repay me by turnin' your god damn back on me?"

Daryl turned, eyes furious. "I ain't owe you _shit_."

Merle opened his mouth to speak, but paused. His expression changed, eyes moving to Carol. He focused on her, the woman who was standing next to Daryl closer than he ever let anyone. She felt the weight of his stare as very slowly an almost smug grin began to grow.

"Whatcha got there now? Don't tell me yer pickin' some one trick woman over your own brother now... No, that just can't be it. What, you finally grow a pair when I was gone little brother?"

Carol held Merle's gaze for as long as she could, but the look in his eyes made her cast her own down. There was something predatory and uncomfortable about that stare. She didn't have anything to prove to him anyway. She already knew he had won.

Something familiar in that look made Daryl's confusion turn fast into resoluteness. He moved, stepping forward determinedly. "We're done. I'm stayin'. Now get out!" Daryl yelled.

He didn't hear Merle's words or Rick's, he just took Carol's arms and pulled her back to the prison, away from Merle's stare. He knew that look. He understood what it meant and the moment it clicked he had made up his mind on what to do. What Merle would force him to do.

Carol half-ran beside Daryl, being pulled in tow. She didn't know what this meant because frankly she thought it would have taken a completely different turn. Daryl wasn't one to reign in his anger, but more one to lash out. She thought the men would have had to pull him back from attacking Merle at one point. Having Daryl give a firm answer and walk away just like that wasn't what she predicted would happen at all.

As they reached the prison and entered inside she let herself unwrap a little piece of hope. Was he staying? Did he really put the group over his brother?

He let her go once they were in cell block C, Daryl locking them securely inside. Running up to his perch Carol followed, stopping as she reached the top step. In a mad hurry Daryl began packing his things (mostly weapons really) into a pack, leaving nothing out.

Whatever hope she had shattered.

He was packing. Leaving. Only intense concentration etched on his face too. Not a hint of sadness or hesitation or any true feeling at all.

Daryl was often pissed at the group for how he thought they treated her. But outside of that, he had become someone everyone relied on and trusted, just as he trusted them. Rick saw him as his number two, looking to him when he needed something: advice, an opinion, reassurance. Everyone felt safer with him around, better protected because Daryl was a man who had proven himself time and time again, saving practically everyone's life- much less the entire groups- over and over. He cemented his place there. He was a solider, fighter, friend and family member. He was wanted and valued. Like Carol had said all those months ago, he was a man of honour.

He was her staple, a constant, a companion and the only thing in the world she had. She couldn't just let him go. How could she let a man like him, however rough around the edges, just go off and back to his old ways.

But bitterly she knew her feelings were secondary to his. If he wanted to go, she would have no choice but to step aside. She cared for him more than she could ever manage to say.

"Go pack up some food." He said, not bothering to look up as he rolled up his blanket and shoved it in the sack.

"No." Carol whispered.

"Don' just stand there, get movin'. Start packin' or doing something useful." He said as he sheathed knives and checked his guns for bullets.

"What? No Daryl, I'm not helping you. You... if you want to go I mean I'm not going to stop you but..."

He slammed his pack to the ground and in a frustrated huff took off down the balcony hall. Right into her cell. Confused and a little upset at this point by him and his attitude Carol ran after him.

"What are you doin'?" she asked annoyed. Daryl was rummaging through her things, pulling out what was hers and throwing around whatever was Lori's.

"We're leavin'. It would be right now if ya god damn helped me." He grabbed the bag she stuff everything into- no one had that much so it was an easy task- and rushed passed her out the cell. "Get yer ass in gear or get outta the way."

The realization of his not leaving her all but slapped her in the face. The other details and questions came much more slowly.

"What? No!" she called after him, running down the steps after him as he stalked towards the food pile. "We _just_ got back. This group needs you... I can't... I don't think I could just walk out on them. They're my family. I can't just leave them for another group."

He stopped, a can of some sort of vegetable in his hand.

"'Nother group? Where ya think we're goin'?" He turned back, getting back to food. "We're not goin' to anyone. We're gettin'outta here."

"Daryl, please stop." She said, pressing her palm to her forehead. Rushing around wasn't helping and she felt either she wasn't asking the right questions, or he wasn't answering enough. "Daryl... stop. Stop it! Just stop!"

The cell rang with her voice, the only sound as Daryl slowly put down a can and down his pack. They needed to stop. She needed him to stop and figure this out. Him flying out of there half cocked and her with no information as to why wasn't going to get them far.

He walked right up to her, voice low and gaze steady. "Merle ain't gonna let this go. He's never been good at that. If I got something he don't... Well he ain't like that."

"I don't understand." She said just as quiet and deliberate. Asking someone to catch her up on a few decades of their unique brotherly dynamic wasn't what she was asking; just an explanation.

"He wants me t'go with him. I'm not goin', not if he dragged me. He thinks yer why..." his focused eyes shifted ever so slightly from her own, the meaning behind that gesture was only one she could speculate on.

"He ain't only want me now." Then he pointed to her. "He wants you. Knows I'm just as much of a stubborn ass as he is an' knows it's the easiest way. And he ain't one to ask politely."

Carol swallowed. She wanted to ask questions but she ignored it. Whatever questions she had about the two of them wasn't essential for now. Merle wasn't going to ask, he was going to act. She didn't focus on what kind of actions, just that step one from them was to leave.

Yet again she would have to part from the group. At least this time there was time for goodbyes. She figured that would make it better and so much more difficult.

TWD

Running, she guessed, wasn't his thing. He'd faced too much- threats that seemed far more present- and had tackled them head on. This felt a little like sneaking around.

Packing up the truck after giving a brief explanation to the other and saying goodbye, she could see and sense his anxiety. Occasionally she would stand next to him, her closeness somehow seeming to calm him a bit.

Once she had said her final farewells for who knew how long, they were off. The road was better on him with the farther away they got, the farther he shifted back to regular "shoot them as they come" demeanor. She couldn't help looking over to him, hands rubbing together in the cool truck cabin.

"Scared of the open road now?" he said, casting her a look.

"Not of the open road, that's for sure." She tried to keep her tone light. Slowly as the trees blurred passed in the headlights she began to think about what did scare her, truly. Because lately she had figured out that it had changed in all those months.

As her faced pulled to a grim look, Carol began to wonder, her answer not what she expected it to be but what she felt it was. As his eyes kept glancing her way Carol could tell what he wanted to ask without him having to say a word. She offered him an answer regardless of his silence.

"I can fight Walkers more or less so they aren't my biggest fear. I guess... It's being left alone again, having to face them and world on my own. I don't think I could do it."

There was a long stretch of silence after that. Neither knew exactly what to do with that answer, so it was just left hanging there between them. For a long time only the muffled sound of the road under the tires could be heard.

"I really thought you were leavin'. For good, to go with Merle." Carol confessed. It was something he had to have known, but she needed to say it. Needed to hear different. "I mean, he is your family."

She kept her head turned to the road, but her eyes were on him, watching. There was a mix of emotions, some he clearly was struggling to hide and others he just didn't know how to deal with. Usually that meant he'd react with anger. She could almost see the words he wanted to form fight it out in his mouth and in his eyes, conflicted and unfamiliar. After a while he spoke slow and slightly cautious.

"You're all I got." He said, not as angry as she would have thought. "Merle ain't my family- he walked out on me, set those Walkers lose on our camp. He could'a come back but he didn't. You're all I got."

Carol sat there, looking at him in silence as he stared out to the road. She watched him almost feel the words on his lips, like he was getting a sense of how they really tasted. This wasn't something he had just thought of or just started feeling, but it was definitely the first time he admitted it to himself.

Slowly she moved her hand across the fabric car seat, moving to set her hand on his. She tried not to show her surprise when he didn't push her away. He took it, applying the smallest amount of pressure while his eyes were fixed firmly on the road.

He'd been denying a lot when it came to what he felt, what he wanted to do and say to her. He had never been in anything like what they had, and he didn't know how to navigate it, so he never acknowledged it. He couldn't.

But she had been forced from him, and now she would be taken from him if he didn't protect her. He couldn't keep being pulled apart from her and couldn't deny any longer what that did to him. What even the thought did.

The moment when he saw that look on Merle's face made too much bubble to the surface: past resentments, explosive anger, extreme protectiveness and a deep ache inside of him. Everything else he could handle, but that last one... He almost couldn't stomach it. It was raw and endless and opened up what he had been pushing down all this time. Merle wouldn't take this from him. Wouldn't take her. He'd done enough.

He couldn't and wouldn't push this down to make him revert back to the boy Merle and his daddy had forced him to be. Daryl wasn't going to lie down a take it, or let Merle take her just to play the sick games he always did. He'd man up and do what needed to be done to protect her.

So Daryl took her hand when she placed it on his. He could feel that ache and wanted her closer, as close to him as possible to keep her safe. He wanted to protect her, care for her like he had been. Like he knew he would always try too. There was more to that feeling, more base and intense, but protecting her took priority now til she was safe.

"I'd always pick you. Against Merle or anyone. Don't think different." He said, quiet and eyes still unmoving from the point where the road met the blackness on the horizon.

Carol unhitched her seat belt, wanting to close the distance between them; the one that had been between them since the woods it felt like. The one they seemed to have left back at the prison.

She was pressed right up beside him and she gently rested her head on his shoulder. They sat there together, oddly at peace in their current circumstance and in a beautifully filled silence. It was that peace that was broken when an earth-shattering crunch hit her ears.

For a brief moment in time, no more than a split second Carol felt the terrifyingly free sensation of floating. What followed next stuck with her for a while longer than that though.

The smack of her head against the passenger window made her body go numb and mind be forced into unconsciousness.

TWD

When she woke, things were different. But she couldn't figure out what was wrong. Everything seemed wrong it just so hard to pin point.

Voices. Warmth. Cold. Pain. Nothing added up into a complete picture. Her mind felt like it had shut off completely.

Very slowly turning, she looked across. Her eyes saw the driver's side door opened up to the night. Somewhere in the darkness beyond were figures in front of a blinding light. Turning dizzyingly the other way, her eyes saw glass covered in long red streaks.

Everything was real and happening, but it all seemed wrong and her mind just couldn't add it up. The pain began to wake her up though, her mind understanding her body first; there'd been an accident. She had flung across the seat and smashed her head on the glass.

But somehow it was like when her head cracked against the window her thoughts had been throw out of it, landing on the road a mile back. She couldn't think, couldn't process, couldn't shake the numbing silence her mind had shook too.

It wasn't like her, the stillness: in her head, body or veins. If she'd been aware enough, Carol would have gotten out of truck, staying along the side to use it as a shield and to level the gun she would've aimed at the intruders. But she stayed, clutching something so tight she couldn't feel her fingers, unaware of the people that were standing just outside the truck.

She had to get out. She had to get out. It wasn't a thought, but a pit of the stomach kinda feel. Carol had never been claustrophobic in her life. She was small and when spaces were small she seemed to fit in comfortably. It was the people she surrounded herself with that had made her past life suffocating.

But now she could feel it, that "get out before you get trapped" kind of feeling everyone had experienced at least once this year. She could feel the danger seeping into the cabin from outside somewhere. Being out in the middle of the woods didn't make you feel safe, but if something came in one direction, you just ran in the other. Stuck in a car means stuck in a car. Ain't a lot of room to get out and ain't a lot of distance between you and dead if they walked up.

Like waves of heat, the truck cabin began filling with that sudden need to get away and get safe. Her hands lethargically moved against the door, searching mechanically for something. Feeling the familiar curve of the handle, Carol began to push and pull against it. She would have given up but the feeling grew and grew.

Somehow a hard and grassy wall hit her, her body suddenly free of the truck. She looked around, willing herself desperately to piece together something of what was going on.

The scene around her was familiar. Grass. Trees.

She was outside. She moved to get up off her knees to stand, gripping the truck door, but only managing to push it closed. On her hands and knees Carol tried to get her body to move.

A sudden, familiar and ear piercing "pop" sounded twice, and Carol looked around her in confusion as tiny little points of light floated down around her. Pushing a hand through the grass below, she hissed in pain. As she looked to her hand, warmth began to spread. Mixed on her palm was a deep red liquid and many of those small points of light.

Glass, she suddenly realized. It was the window above her. Somehow it must have smashed.

She brought her hands to her chest, realizing again that one held something with a terribly firm grip.

She was looking down at it when something grabbed her from behind.

"Let her go!" Someone screamed hoarsely as she was pulled up and dragged towards the blinding light.

"Now now, I just wanted t' pass on the courtesy of what good 'ole Officer Friendly did to me little brother." This voice was different than the other one. She thought it belonged to the arms that held her tightly.

"You piece a' shit. Let her go!" It was muffled. Pained.

"I'm just gonna do to her what the others woulda done to you. Make you understand somethin' about those folks." As the first voice screamed and violently swore, Carol saw something wave in front of her. It was long and thin and shone, and it looked like it was attached to the arm that held her.

A knife. Her mind supplied the right answer as to what it was, but there was no hand holding it. A knife attached to an arm didn't make any sense.

Her body didn't even have the sense to jerk away when the knife lowered to her wrist. The pressure was little at first, but quickly it increased and almost distantly Carol heard her own voice scream in pain.

Writhing and twisting now in her captor's unyielding grip, Carol tried to break free as the pain wracked her body like a shock exploding through her.

Turning towards the man as much as she could, she tried to push him away with her free hand, the one still holding the thing she had woken up with. She squeezed it hard as she pushed and twisted against him. Then a few of those familiar and loud "pops" hit her at the same time as a warm mist sprayed her skin. It instantly cooled against her in the night air.

That was the last thing she felt as the world went dark once again, her mind slipping easily back into unconsciousness.

_A/N:_

_Sorry for the delay in updating; I like to put up a chapter of something every day but I'm moving out of my house so that's taking up more of my time as of late. If you've moved before you know the hell of trying to pack up an entire house. This one is shorter, but I wanted to get something out there so you didn't think I had forgotten about ya'll!  
_

_Can I just say, you guys are troopers for putting up with my stupid typos. UGH. I read through the other chapters before writing this one and holy crap. I formally and deeply apologize. I usually write and post updates sometime between midnight and 6am (that one time) so let's blame that. You guys are just wonderful for putting up with it._

_So Merle. I tried. I read through his quotes from the show, using some of his wording and phrases._

_What did you think of this chapter?_

_Happy fanfic-ing darlings :)  
_


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